Hello guys....!
I am new to SEO. But I have lots of experience in the web design world. One of my old employers (before I was a web designer) wants to use me for their SEO services. I am not sure what to charge. Does anyone have any suggestions for a new SEO professional? These are the skills I will be doing:

1. Create an XML sitemap and submit to all major search engines.

2. Install a Wordpress Blog which matches the theme of your site. I will be responsible for maintaining it.

3. Create new pages/forms as requested. Update any of the pages as requested.

4. We will add appropriate meta tags/titles to any new page. You would have to provide with the keywords and accordingly we will create them.

As somebody who is building an SEO business from scratch, here's what works for me.

Upfront--$1000.00 upfront to get analytics installed, optimize the site, create two blogs and two web 2.0 properties and get it to the front page of Google. I quote a 90-day timeframe but try to deliver much quicker. I charge more if it's a highly competitive keyword. I get half up-front and half when we hit the top-10.

Monthly Recurring: At first I charged $200 for generic "maintenance." but what I've done now is adopt a professional services model. That means that I charge them a minimum of $200 a month at a rate of $25 an hour and they can use that time however they see fit. I give them an estimate of what something will take and then they can use available hours or buy more. I also allow them to "bank" hours--I may charge them for a month but not do any work and in the next month I'll do 16-hours worth of work.

With this approach they know they're getting my undivided attention and projects they want completed are done.

* website (if you have to build it from scratch)
* linkbuilding
* SEO audits and other more technical work.

The trick is justifying the higher fees for bigger companies on larger projects.

if the site or company is making $100k a month... i would charge $5 - 10k a month... and justifying your experience and ask yourself how much are you worth... ?????? i seen webmasters charging $6k for small business's websites... and their work is nothing but templates... some people sell snake oil...

I create a 25-40 page report of recommendations based on the website, keyword space, competitors, and the tactics being used in those areas. Takes about 15 hours or more to do all the analysis. I charge $1000 for the report as needed by the clients which is about once or twice a year for most. It is densely packed with examples and URLs and explanations. I label relative risk levels with tactics and estimated degree of difficulty for the implementation. I don't do implementation. I am an excellent programmer, but there are cheaper coders that are just as good. I focus solely on the analysis of what it is going to take to be competitive. I let the client decide which tactics are within their comfort levels. I emphasize understanding them all so you know what you are up against and that you'll need to overcompensate in other areas to make up for shortcomings because of areas where you can't compete.

I like short engagements that have finite scope and high ROI for the customer. I try not to take customers that aren't in a position to act on the information. In those cases I recommend other sources of help and tell them at which milestones they should come back and consider my service and why.

I tend to work with larger businesses. I'm way too expensive for people that are just working on pocket money. (Which is not bad by any means... An extra few hundred dollars a month is a great thing.) If I am going to take a finite amount of time away from my family to make a little extra money on the side then I need to deliver real value in full with slices of that time. To a large extent time constraints vs. customer wants and needs has shaped my model this way.

The customers I have are happy with my product and most are life long contacts now. I am easy to work with. I don't overbook. I manage expectations well. I'm very easy to plan into a budget. I can easily schedule these projects into my regular life without having to sacrifice everything. Win-Win... its the only business relationship that lasts over time.

I create a 25-40 page report of recommendations based on the website, keyword space, competitors, and the tactics being used in those areas. Takes about 15 hours or more to do all the analysis. I charge $1000 for the report as needed by the clients which is about once or twice a year for most. It is densely packed with examples and URLs and explanations. I label relative risk levels with tactics and estimated degree of difficulty for the implementation. I don't do implementation. I am an excellent programmer, but there are cheaper coders that are just as good. I focus solely on the analysis of what it is going to take to be competitive. I let the client decide which tactics are within their comfort levels. I emphasize understanding them all so you know what you are up against and that you'll need to overcompensate in other areas to make up for shortcomings because of areas where you can't compete.

I like short engagements that have finite scope and high ROI for the customer. I try not to take customers that aren't in a position to act on the information. In those cases I recommend other sources of help and tell them at which milestones they should come back and consider my service and why.

I tend to work with larger businesses. I'm way too expensive for people that are just working on pocket money. (Which is not bad by any means... An extra few hundred dollars a month is a great thing.) If I am going to take a finite amount of time away from my family to make a little extra money on the side then I need to deliver real value in full with slices of that time. To a large extent time constraints vs. customer wants and needs has shaped my model this way.

The customers I have are happy with my product and most are life long contacts now. I am easy to work with. I don't overbook. I manage expectations well. I'm very easy to plan into a budget. I can easily schedule these projects into my regular life without having to sacrifice everything. Win-Win... its the only business relationship that lasts over time.

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Favorite model of the topic. 2nd best is monthly recurring. Simply because I have been considering doing the same

This isn't an RFP for services thread. That would break the forum rules. The OP is asking about how to price an SEO service that will hopefully compete with yours and mine and wants honest help. There is a lot of variation in SEO service models and pricing can vary widely. You are supposed to share what works for you if you are willing to share... or comment on pros and cons of pricing models. If you want to sell your service there is a section for that or you can pay to advertise in your signature.

This isn't an RFP for services thread. That would break the forum rules. The OP is asking about how to price an SEO service that will hopefully compete with yours and mine and wants honest help. There is a lot of variation in SEO service models and pricing can vary widely. You are supposed to share what works for you if you are willing to share... or comment on pros and cons of pricing models. If you want to sell your service there is a section for that or you can pay to advertise in your signature.

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Don't worry, he'd just charge money for telling you that you need to stuff your meta keywords, post articles, and spam altavista. All old, outdated, and useless. Well, for the most part :flypig:

The customers I have are happy with my product and most are life long contacts now. I am easy to work with. I don't overbook. I manage expectations well. I'm very easy to plan into a budget. I can easily schedule these projects into my regular life without having to sacrifice everything. Win-Win... its the only business relationship that lasts over time.

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You're the man. Do you only include on-site seo in your reports or do you give them specific link building recommendations too?

You're the man. Do you only include on-site seo in your reports or do you give them specific link building recommendations too?

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Mostly. On page tuning. I touch upon link building in places though. Its not a primary focus. Beyond strategy, it is more cost effective to outsource link building to a service than to pay my rates to do it.

You must be pretty well known and have good reputation to demand upfront payment, right? I'm only asking because I never dared to ask my employers for upfront payments.

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I know this part of your post was targeted to someone else, but I thought I'd chime in...

I always demand payment in full upfront. Not one of my clients ever had a problem with that. The only time I've had issues with pricing is when prospect can't afford my service... But not a single one had issues with upfront payments. Converting existing clients over to that may be problematic though. It also changes if the prices are really big. But when the turnaround time is real fast then you pretty much have too. It also allows your clients to be totally honest with you, which is in their best interest. If they are worried that they may not be able to pay your bill then they won't tell you that they are willing to try high risk/high reward tactics because they need cash flow really fast. If they pay you upfront then they have nothing to lose by being totally honest with goals and tolerances.

I also don't provide references. I don't talk about my clients specific details ever. I don't mention their domains. I don't talk about their tactics. It is only risk for them and brings no additional rewards to them. It is a tough road to go down for me, but my clients ultimately realize the huge value that brings them. They know I won't go down the list of sites like theirs and say to them "see what I can do"... its a little upfront risk for them, but huge benefit of ongoing peace of mind and trust going forward.

I forgot to mention that upfront pricing is a trade off... they don't have to deal with minimums, contract term lengths, recurring payments, and going over-budget. So the little bit of front end risk removes a great deal of backend risk.

When it comes to selling search engine optimization to normal business owners don't charge them based on the work you provide, instead charge them entirely based on the RETURN they can expect.

In other words if you expect they could make several thousands dollars per month from a #1 ranking, charge them $1000 per month recurring... charge them more then you're comfortable with, because end of the day you need to think about the value you provide and not of the amount of hours of work you put in.

One of my friends routinely gets payed $300-900 per month for managing "Google Places", and with most clients the actual "work" he puts in is next to nothing each month but they happily cough up the dough because the value a top ranking in Google Places provides them is much more then the amount he charges per month.

Yeah if you're cheap and they see results they start thinking this guy's ok but imagine what will happen if we get the 'real pros' that charge 10 times more. Always best to ask alot if you can achieve a lot. The size of the workload itself doesn't matter.

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